


So Far

by theWickedWitchofFeels



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Death, F/F, One-Shot, Sadness, Season 1, Swan Queen - Freeform, What-If?, regal believer-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:32:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4131168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theWickedWitchofFeels/pseuds/theWickedWitchofFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't even know what this is. I think it's the result of me wondering what would have happened if Henry hadn't eaten the cursed turnover in season 1, and Emma had done as suggested and eaten it on the road...</p><p>**Warning: Some feels. Hopefully, if I did my job right.**</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Far

“I think that this - whatever is between us - needs to end.”

... 

 

Emma slung her bag over her back, straightening from her work and casting one last look around the apartment she’d been sharing with Mary Margaret. 

Her roommate was gone, having at her request taken Henry out to Granny’s in her stead. Emma couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye to the boy; she just knew he’d find some way to persuade her to stay, and she couldn’t do that. Not this time. 

Her eyes landed on the Tupperware containing Regina’s turnover. With a sigh, she scooped up the container. Much as she was loathe to admit it, she was going to miss the Mayor as well. Difficult though she may be, there was something about her that Emma couldn’t quite place, but that drew her in like a moth to flame. 

She went out to her Bug and started the old car, setting her bag in the back and the turnover in the passenger’s seat. As she drove past Granny’s, she could almost feel Henry’s eyes boring into her, the guilt almost enough to make her stop. But she didn’t. 

Her stomach growled; she’d been too busy packing that morning to have breakfast. She reached over, opened the container and broke off a bit of turnover. 

The moment the apple passed her lips, blackness slammed over her. There was a flash of agonizing pain - then, nothing. 

 

\---

 

“Regina, it’s Mary Margaret. Emma’s been in a car accident. I’m taking Henry to see her.”

Regina froze upon hearing the voicemail. Her plan had worked; the Savior was out of the way. 

So why was her heart clenching as if she had heard that the one she loved most had been hurt? She shoved the feeling away - this was what she had been working for, what had she expected? - but suddenly found herself seizing her jacket and running to her car.

\---

“Where is she?” She asked Dr. Whale tightly as she swept into the hospital. He frowned. “Sheriff Swan.” 

“In the ER prepping for emergency surgery. She appears to have blacked out on the road and spun out, hitting a tree and falling down to the creek under the Troll Bridge. She sustained substantial injury, particularly to her back and head.” Whale looked grim, which sent an unpleasant feeling of dread through Regina. 

“I have to see her,” Regina growled, holding up her hand to stymie a protesting Whale. “Now.” 

\---

The first thing she saw as she followed Whale into the ER was Henry’s desperate gaze, turning accusatory as it fell on her. 

“YOU DID THIS!” he cried, lunging at her. Mary Margaret had to hold him back from running at her. “YOU - YOU KILLED MY MOM -”

Killed?

Regina’s normally distant, controlled dark brown gaze was now wide, panicked. She looked past Henry and Mary Margaret to where Emma lay on a temporary hospital bed, surrounded by a gaggle of nurses and doctors prepping her for surgery.

The once-fiery blonde sheriff seemed to be little more than a hurt child now. Blood caked her head and what she could see of her shoulders, concealing the bright gold of her hair. Her chest hardly moved, and when she numbly moved to take one of Emma’s hands, it was deathly cold to her touch.

Tears sprang unbidden to Regina’s eyes. She shot the nurses a look and they backed off, eying her warily but she didn’t care. 

“E-Emma?” The Mayor didn’t stutter. The Evil Queen did not weep over the bodies of her enemies. So why, why was she now? Why did she feel like she was watching Daniel die all over again, only this time at her bidding - 

The room had gone deathly silent, and for Regina it seemed to have constricted to only her and the broken body of this woman, and she realized - for there to be loss, there must have been love. 

And she knew what to do; the only thing that might help. Regina leaned down and slowly, hesitantly, pressed her lips to Emma’s faintly warm, full, almost familiar ones. She kissed passionately, pouring all of her newly realized feelings into the gesture, and suddenly a burst of magic came forth, and Emma’s eyes sprang open. 

“Regina?” 

Regina looked up at her, bewildered and scared at the same time. There was a sharp intake of breath behind them from Henry, Mary Margaret and Whale.

“True love’s kiss,” Mary Margaret breathed.

“You broke the curse!” Henry realized.

Regina tuned them out, her eyes focused on Emma’s. She realized with a sinking feeling of dread that, though they were now open, they were laced with agony. 

Emma’s mouth twitched. “There are better ways to get your crush’s attention, you know.” 

“I do not have crushes,” Regina denied, stroking Emma’s blood-soaked hair. 

“Do too. You haven’t stopped eying my cleavage since we met.” Emma closed her eyes in pain. Regina looked up at Whale in panic. 

“She’s awake but she’s still hurt,” Whale snapped to attention. The nurses descended once more. As they wheeled her away into surgery, Emma’s head lolled to the side, her eyes never leaving Regina.

“I love you too.” she mouthed. 

\---

Regina stayed in the waiting room, lacing her fingers together anxiously and determinedly not looking at Mary Margaret. Henry seemed torn between anger at her and delight that she had fallen in love with his birth mom and broken the town’s curse. He stayed with Mary Margaret at first, but as the night wore on and there was no news of Emma, his anxiety seemed to grow, and he ended up slumped in the chair next to her, his head in her lap as she stroked his hair. 

It was nearly daybreak by Regina’s estimation when the door finally opened. Her stomach twisted painfully as she registered the grim expression on his face. 

“Miss Swan...did not make it through surgery.” He said quietly. “She flatlined and was pronounced dead from internal injury and blood loss. I am…” the normally stoic doctor bowed his head. “I am truly sorry.”

Regina’s head spun, and her eyes stared numbly at Whale, unbelieving of the words that she had heard come from his mouth. She stood up, clutching a sobbing Henry to her side. Whale obeyed her unspoken order, leading them to the room where Emma lay.

A white sheet had been placed over the body, so it was hidden from sight. Regina’s hand shook as she reached out, lifting the sheet back. 

It was her. It was her Emma - but her eyes were closed, and her chest was still. The blood had been washed off of her, and now it almost looked like she was asleep, but for the gaping wound on her head. 

“Emma?” Impulsively, Regina once again pressed her lips to the blonde’s, but this time there was no responding wave of magic, no fluttering open of blue-gray eyes. There was only a stark stillness, one that was so distinctly not-Emma that it sent Regina reeling.

She was the Evil Queen. She did not cry for her enemies.

Yet, somewhere along the line, Emma had ceased to be her enemy, without her even realizing it until it was too late. What little there had been - what could have been - was gone now.   
Emma had become Regina’s true love.

But even true love can only go so far. 

…

“You’re Henry’s birth mother?”   
“Hi…”


End file.
